Rajkot eyes inclusion in first 20 list of Smart Cities

The idea behind the mission is to improve the quality of life and attracting people and investments to the City, setting in motion a virtuous cycle of growth and development.Vijay Singh | TNN | August 03, 2015, 08:31 IST

RAJKOT: Saurashtra's commercial capital is gearing up to compete with 100 other cities to be included in the first round of 20 Smart Cities of the country.

The selected city will get total Rs 500 crore in five years.

The idea behind the mission is to improve the quality of life and attracting people and investments to the City, setting in motion a virtuous cycle of growth and development. The union government has issued a guideline in this regard. Six cities from Gujarat will be selected as Smart cities.

"We have already submitted the prescribed form for 'Smart Cities Mission' to state government. Our self-appraisal suggests that we gets 92.5 marks out of 100,'' Vijay Nehra, municipal commissioner, told TOI.

Nehra said that RMC has carried out various reforms and implemented projects in last one year and is uniquely positioned so far as smart cities are concerned. "We are putting our best efforts to get Rajkot city included in the first round 20 Smart Cities. We have done lots of groundwork in various aspects of civic amenities," Nehra said.

"The strategic components of area-based development in the Smart Cities Mission guidelines are city retrofitting, redevelopment and greenfield development, plus a pan-city initiative in which smart solutions are applied covering larger parts of the city. Some of the features of already been initiated in Rajkot. So, we are better positioned in many aspects,'' Nehra added.

Rajkot: Each aspiring city competes for selection as a Smart City in what is called a 'City Challenge'. There are two stages in the selection process. In stage one, the state government will shortlist cities as per the Smart Cites Mission guidelines and will recommend highest scoring six cities to GoI. Thereafter, GoI will announce list of 100 Smart Cities and it will give Rs two crore to each 100 Smart Cities to prepare Smart City Proposal (SCP). GoI will also provide consultants to cities to prepare the proposal. This is a crucial stage of competition. Cities will submit their SCPs to GoI and it will evaluate them and then it will declare first round of 20 Smart Cities. The first 20 Smart Cities will get Rs 194 crore each this financial year. Once the city is selected, it has to set up Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with the appointment of full-time CEO for this mission and the SPV will look after the project implementations.

Permanent space for hawkers, breathing space for commuters

Rajkot: RMC has set up 105 Hawkers' zone in city and provided dedicated space to over 14000 street vendors in city. "We have implemented The Street Vendors (Protection of livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 in letter and spirit. We have issued unique ID cards to them. As they have got permanent space, nobody will harass them anymore. Interestingly, earlier, hardly Rs 2 lakh collected as fees from hawkers but now, this has gone up to Rs 18 lakh per month. Each hawker have to pay Rs 500 per month to civic office. This system helped RMC as roads were decongested and hawkers get hassle free space. We are linking them with social security plans as well'' Vijay Nehra added.

Move Smart, use bicycle

RMC's Bicycle Sharing Project launched in April has received good response till now. Rajkot is the first city in the state to launch this project to provide non-motorized transport. In all, 22 cycle stations have been set up where anyone can take cycle free of cost for two hours by giving their identity card and return the cycle at the same station. A new feature enables users to get cycle from any of the stations and drop it at any station in city. Hotels have started keeping five cycles for its customers too.

Each drop of water is precious

The Real time bulk water audit system project' was first launched in the city. The project is based on supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system through which RMC will be able to monitor real time inflow-outflow of water supply and distribution from its various sources and head-works. It has installed water-level sensor, which continuously monitors level in dams, head-works using ultrasonic type sensor. The storage, percentage storage and live storage, will be available online. There are sensors to monitor residual chlorine in main supply lines at head works.

Housing more people for Smart City

RMC has moved ahead in implementing housing schemes under Public Private Partnership (PPP). "We have started slum redevelopment from one acre and in a phased manner, we are able to take large slum in Velnathpara which is spread over 21 acre. We have the experience and expertise in implementing large projects under PPP model and we can scale up to over 50 acre area which is one requirement of redevelopment model of Smart cities mission,'' Nehra added.

Lighting up future

RMC has initiated various projects in promoting and implementing solar energy. The building by-laws have been changed and roof-top solar water heating system has been made mandatory, As a result, there over 25,000 houses in city which have such systems.

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